Main St., Seymour, Conn.

Main St., Seymour, Conn.

View of a block of 19th and early 20th-century commercial structures in a downtown. This image is part of a series made by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to cover New England or upstate New York. The quest for images that would be saleable as postcards resulted in the documentation of small towns and small town life at the turn of the 20th century. As the photos were shot, the glass plates were sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street. Like many of the towns situated in the Naugatuck River Valley, Seymour was known for copper and brass production.Trolley tracks in the street would have linked it to the cities of Naugatuck and Waterbury, to the north. Here, pedestrians and motorcars animate the downtown, which looks out over the river valley. Awnings suggest a summer day. An elaborate political banner touting the Presidential campaign of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, including portraits of the candidates, hangs above the far right end of the street, indicating the year is 1920. The brick building in the foreground appears to be an early form of the commercial block: probably built well before the Civil War, its facade may have been updated in a later decade. Signs hanging from its storefront identify George Smith & Son Drugstore (also carrying ice cresm sodas) and a dentist's office upstairs. The structure next door, with a cigar store, has a shallow pitched gable roof, suggesting a mid-19th century date. The Humphreys Building, next door, stands out owing to its exotic onion dome. It was erected in 1891 by businessman and industrialist Carlos French. Just beyond is an Italianate brownstone building, likely, originally, the home of a wealthy Seymour resident. Next is the Yale-Beach Block, built in 1900-01. Part of it was occupied by a Masonic Hall, Home of Morningstar Lodge No. 47. The next building on the right was built in 1902, and houses a store with a modern sign "Electicity for Everything". Next door are two more contemporaneous commercial buildings with storefronts along the sidewalk.